Part 2/4 - Myths and legends

For centuries, Tahiti and Her Islands have been man's mythical paradise. Today, one of nature's most magnificent creations is born in the turquoise-colored lagoons of many of these islands and atolls. That creation is the Tahitian black pearl, a jewel of the sea, the living symbol of the purity and perfection found in a paradise.

But long before Western man even discovered that Tahiti existed, the black pearl had a reputation for exceptional value and rarity that was only enhanced by its use in the jewelry of the world's royalty and nobility.

The result was that the natural black pearl became known as the "pearl of queens" and the "queen of pearls", its wonder inspiring many questions among many people many centuries ago. But their lack of scientific precision led them to improvise with legend and poetry.

Many Imaginative Pearl Legends

Thus, the ancient Chinese believed that pearls were conceived in the brains of dragons. In imperial China, the natural black pearl was regarded as a symbol of wisdom. As such, it was guarded between the teeth of a dragon, which had to be slain before the pearl could be taken.

Some Hindu writers have linked pearls with clouds, elephants, snakes, wild boars, fish and --only sometimes-- with oysters, themselves. The Greeks and Romans thought pearls were born in oysters as a result of a drop of rain or dew having penetrated between the layers. The Persians thought the same, but they believed that if a pearl was imperfect it was due to thunder in the sky. A more colorful version says pearls are born from the meeting of a rainbow with the earth.

Pearls Came from Angels' Tears in the Orient

In the Orient, pearls are sometimes associated with the tears of angels, mermaids or mythical nymphs in stories mixing pain and suffering with bliss. A Ceylon legend tells how the tears of Adam and Eve created a lake that gave birth to pearls --white or pink pearls from Eve's tears, and more precious and rare gray and black pearls from Adam's tears. Why the difference? Man knows better how to control his emotions, according to the legend.

There have been many ancient legends handed down from one Polynesian generation to the next on the creation of black pearls. According to one of those legends, Oro, the Polynesian god of peace and fertility, came down to earth on a rainbow to offer a special type of pearl oyster to man.

Oro offers Pearl to Princess of Bora Bora

Te Ufi was the name given to that black-lipped pearl oyster, a mollusk that secretes a nacreous substance varying in color from gray to black. Some say that Oro offered the pearl from this oyster to the beautiful princess of Bora Bora as a sign of his love.

It is also said that Okana and Uaro, the spirits of coral and sand, respectively, adorned Te Ufi with a cloak that glistened with the colors of all the fish that swim in Polynesia. For thousands of years the glory of the heavens has come to rest on the ocean bed in the secret hollow of the iridescent mother-of-pearl, a gift from the sky to the sea.

One of the most romantic legends tells how the moon bathes the ocean in its light to attract the oysters to the surface so that it may impregnate them with heavenly dew. Polished by time, this drop of light holds this heavenly radiance within its heart and cloaks itself in a garment with blue, green, pink and golden reflections that shine and blend in harmony.

According to modern legend, the Tahitian black pearl is born from a flaw in nature: a grain of sand entered on an oyster's delicate flesh; the mother-of-pearl covers up the intruder and forms the roundness of the pearl. Rocked by the waves, the pearl is black and beautiful, like the loved one in the Song of Solomon.

The Tahitian black pearl has become the symbol of hope in man's wounded heart.

Legend of the Pearl of Tahiti

(Source: "Royaume de la Perle" by Leonard Rosenthal, Editions Payot et Cie, Paris, 1919, 210 pages)

One day Amry, a diver, went to see the King's jeweler to sell him pearls he had found in the golden waters off Bahrain Island. On this same day, the beautiful Anouba, wife of Calife, halted her porters at the door of a merchant, to whom she showed a wonderful black pearl with a golden orient.

"Can you sell me a similar pearl?" she asked him.

The merchant took the pearl, placed it on a silk cushion and thought about it, his hands crossed on his chest like a worshipping Brahman. But he soon shook his head in a discouraging manner and replied, "There aren't two similar pearls in the world."
Amry, who had moved closer, repeated in a low voice the words of the merchant.
"So," said the beautiful Anouba, "you're not even trying to earn the twenty thousand sequins I'm offering as the prize of this jewel?"

"Princess", said the merchant bowing to the ground, "ask me for emeralds as big as pigeon eggs, arborescent agates, topaz cabochons gleaming like the eyes of a tiger and rubies from Ceylon that give off flames in the night. Your humble servant can place all of these treasures at your feet. But stars will fall like golden rain on the domes of your Palace before he can find a pearl similar to this one."
As he spoke, the Princess looking from behind her veil, Amry held himself leaning against a bamboo post, his eyes staring at the pearl.
"This man is one of your servants?" she asked the merchant.

Amry proudly raised his head and said, "I am Amry, the pearl diver; the son of my mother is free."

"Amry," Anouba said," do you want to earn twenty thousand sequins?"
"Better to ask me if I want to die," the pearl diver replied with a serious voice.
"What do you say?"

"There is," Amry continued, "in two hundred fathoms of water in the bay of Bahrain Island, a coral reef where the old Phangar, the Gulf's most famous diver, found during his youth the black pearl that Prince Mescheb wears embedded in the pommel of his dagger. But Phangar has never returned to this chasm and he turns pale and shivers with terror when his small boat passes over the reef where he found the precious pearl.

"What did he see?" the beautiful Anouba asked with avid curiosity.

"When Phangar, his right foot in the stirrup of the sounding line, gave the signal to his companions, and the lead weight attached to the rope pulled him into the chasm, he went through a layer of emeralds that rumbled and bubbled around him like lava from a volcano. The shock was so violent when the sounding line touched bottom that he fell on his hands and knees. The sharp strips and pointed coral, whose sting burns like red-hot iron, drew blood from a hundred wounds, but he couldn't complain. He had gone to work and already had some twenty shells in his canvas sack when it seemed like the reef was rising near him and a floating mass, grayish like the coral, was slowly moving forward by wriggling its long, pliable branches like vines. One of its branches slid across his naked chest and attached itself there, but Phangar couldn't shout. A giant spider crab floated by two fathoms from his face, shooting a look at him, his eyes a pale green that looked like two bright rays of light.

"Phangar's companions, who remained in the small boat, feeling the calling rope suddenly stiffen, hastened to pull it up. The diver had lost consciousness and he was turned on his side, the signs of the monster's grasp."
"Well," said Calife's wife, "since you know so well where the black pearls are found, you must dive in the Bahrain Golf, kill the monster who guards the treasures and bring me the pearl that I desire, the one I want."
Amry replied: "I have an old, crippled mother who lives only from my work. I am engaged to a woman who is an orphan and whom I love and must protect. What's more, I would be uselessly risking my life to satisfy your desire, since there are no two pearls the same in all of the oceans."
Anouba looked at the diver for a minute from behind the veils of her Yachmack, and then told him, "Come to the Palace tomorrow at five in the morning."
Then she got back into her palanquin.

The next day, Amry dressed in his finest clothes and went to the Calife Palace. A black deaf-mute, who was waiting at the entrance to the gardens, led Amry to the living quarters of the Princess. Anouba, always veiled, was leaning against the cushions of a sofa. She made a sign to the black man, who bowed like an bow and disappeared immediately.
"Approach," the Princess told the diver.
He took two steps forward and bent to the knees.
"You said," repeated Anouba, "that nature cannot create two similar pearls. Look!"
And her arm, covered with jingling bracelets, went around her face, lowering the silky gauze that veiled her.

Amry let out a shout of admiration and remained as motionless as a stone statue. It wasn't with her eyes that the Princess looked at him. It was with two black diamonds embedded in a fairy's face, polished like ivory, whiter, purer than a fleur de lis bathed in the light of the moon. The flash that had dazzled Amry died away little by little, as if it were veiled by a cloud, and he only saw two doe eyes, full of exhilaration and warm fragrance, that looked into his heart.

Anouba opened her lips to speak, but Amry extended his arms towards her, murmuring in a broken voice: "I will look for the pearl at the bottom of the Bahrain chasm, and I will leave my blood and my skin on the pointed coral, as I have left my heart and my soul here!"

The next day, at the first sign of dawn, Amry took his small boat and headed to the area where he knew to find the treasure. When it descended to the bottom of the sea, he hurried to fill up his canvas sack with the most beautiful shells. He was preparing to go back up to the surface when he spotted an extraordinarily big oyster in rock crevice. He grabbed hold of it. But at the same time, a monster that he had never before seen until it rushed towards him and, in doing so, tried to suffocate him. Amry fought with all his strength. He felt life slipping away through the many wounds. Finally, with a supreme effort, he managed to free his right hand and plunged his dagger between the two eyes of the gigantic spider crab.

He made the call signal and his companions hurried to bring him up. But when he arrived under the light of day, he had lost so much blood from his eyes, nose and mouth that he fainted and didn't come to until several hours later in the palace of the wife of Calife, where she had him brought.

When he revived, he was surprised to find himself in this unknown place, and especially to see the beautiful Princess alone with him, her face uncovered.
"Well," she said with a melodious voice, "were you successful?"
"Yes," replied Amry, "the monster drank my blood, but I killed him, and here is the treasure that he guarded at the bottom of the ocean." He held out the opened oyster, which held a marvelous pearl even more beautiful than that of Prince Mescheb.
The princess let out a shout of admiration and remained in ecstasy before this incomparable jewel of nature.

"Tell me what you want," she told him. "If you wish, my fortune is yours."
But Amry, bowing at her feet, told her: "Princess, keep your riches. Amry wouldn't know what to do with them. You have taken his heart and soul. The poor diver, who can't hope to have your love, prefers to take his life."
And more rapid than a thought, he plunged his dagger into his heart.

Textes Copyright © 1996-2001 GIE Perles de Tahiti
images Copyright © Pacific-image 1997